


Battle Prize

by MiniNephthys



Category: Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: Gen, Genocide Route, POV Second Person, Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-12
Updated: 2015-10-12
Packaged: 2018-04-26 01:36:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 675
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4984879
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MiniNephthys/pseuds/MiniNephthys
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When you want to remember something, you keep a memento of it.  Isn't it the same for killing monsters?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Battle Prize

**Author's Note:**

  * For [simplycarryon](https://archiveofourown.org/users/simplycarryon/gifts).



> This isn't quite the same as simplycarryon's original idea, but nonetheless it was inspired by her!

Originally, you just kill everything that passes in your way and move on without a moment’s further thought. No monster is worth spending more time on than the minute it takes to kill them.

It’s not the monsters that make you change this policy. It’s the cold.

Once you leave the ruins, the chill starts to sink into your bones. You’re not dressed to be walking around in the snow, sliding on ice. The cold keeps your attention much more than the skeletons who keep trying to talk to you and throwing meaningless puzzles in your path.

You wish you had a pair of gloves, or a sweater, or…

You look between the shorter one’s jacket and the taller one’s cloak.

Those will do. Both, preferably, but you’ll survive with one or the other for the moment.

An hour later you finally get a chance to kill one of them. Papyrus - is that his name? - doesn’t put up a fight, under some misguided notion that you can feel regret. You don’t even wait for his head to disappear before grabbing his cape and draping it over your shoulders.

It’s not as warm as you’d hoped, but better than nothing.

* * *

Waterfall is not as cold as Snowdin, but the breeze can be chilly. You keep the cloak on as you navigate through the fields of flowers repeating the words of people who are either dead now or soon will be.

The flowers will live, for the moment. You don’t dislike flowers.

The heroic wannabe called ‘Undyne’ growls at you even as her body is starting to disappear. “How dare you, wearing Papyrus’ clothes like a battle trophy…!”

That actually gets you to almost smile. “It would have had to have been a battle for it to be a battle trophy. I just picked this off a pile of dust.”

Undyne reforms her body almost instantly. You didn’t know monsters could do that just from being angry enough. ...No, it’s from determination, isn’t it? Determination to give you ‘justice’.

It’s funny, and that makes it worth the extra labor it takes to kill her. You have to give her credit: she lasts longer than anyone else has up to this point. Possibly put together.

You decide you’ll pay tribute to her perseverance by using her idea. When she starts to melt, you snatch her eyepatch off her face before it can be damaged.

“You should feel good. That was a fight worth remembering.”

She manages to still glare at you even when her face is almost unrecognizable, which is impressive in itself.

* * *

Hotland, not surprisingly, is too hot for you to wear your cloak, and you don’t feel like giving yourself a handicap by wearing your eyepatch, so you just carry them around as you pass through. You eat part of a snowman before it melts. Not bad.

Mettatton is a colossal disappointment. You were thinking about grabbing some parts off his body, maybe some wires if nothing else, but now you don’t want to be reminded of what a let down he was. You walk past without taking anything.

* * *

There’s a draft in the castle. You put on your cloak, and the eyepatch for good measure, and giggle when you see Sans.

“Hey, Sans. Don’t you think it’s cold in here?” you ask.

Sans shrugs deliberately. His gaze is fixed on your cloak as he does. “Skeletons can’t feel the cold.”

“They can’t? That explains why this cape is so ratty and useless. Just like its last owner.” You smirk. “I hope your jacket’s made of a little stronger material.”

He’s not as much of a pushover as his brother. Not even close. Not having depth perception becomes a problem, so you toss off the eyepatch. It’s a shame you never could torment Alphys with it.

In the end, you think Sans bleeds on his jacket just to spite you, because otherwise the idea of a skeleton bleeding makes no logical sense. But the joke’s on him, because you don’t care. You pick it up anyway.


End file.
